New Delhi: Several organisations today staged
protests here on the third anniversary of the the Batla House
encounter in which three alleged Indian Mujahideen terrorists
were killed, demanding a judicial probe into the incident even
as the national capital was put under a tight vigil.
Security apparatus has been strengthened against the
backdrop of a terror attack carried out on the same day last
year outside Jama Masjid, in which two Taiwanese nationals
were injured, to avenge the 2008 Batla House encounter which
took place a week after the Indian Mujahideen had carried out
serial blasts in the capital.
The capital is still reeling from the bomb blast outside
the Delhi High Court 12 days ago which killed 15 people,
including a woman, and injured over 70 others.
While a group of people took out a march from Batla House
in south Delhi to Jantar Mantar, activists of Rashtriya Ulema
Council gathered at the site demanding an "independent"
judicial probe into the incident.
National president of the Council Aamir Rashadi Madni
claimed that the two youths -- Atif Amin and Mohd Sajad -- who
were killed in the encounter at Batla House were innocent.
"There should be an independent enquiry by a sitting
Supreme Court judge to probe the fake Batla House encounter
and whosoever found guilty must be punished," Madni told PTI.
Madni said the circumstances in which police inspector
Mohan Chand Sharma of Delhi Police's Special Cell was killed
in the encounter should also be probed.
"We have been demanding a judicial probe into the matter
for the last three years but the government led by Congress,
which falsely claims to be Muslims' well wisher, is not
listening to us," Madani alleged.
"Several Muslims were arrested for their alleged
involvement in Malegaon bomb blast case but now it has
come to light that they were completely innocent. Now who is
going to compensate their lost years”, Madni said.
Over 20,000 armed personnel have been deployed across the
city who are keeping a hawk-eye vigil and carrying out
searches in the wake of the heightened threat perception, an
official said, adding that all precautionary measures were
being taken.
"Till Dusshera, we have to be on high alert. We will be
conducting extra searches. People may get inconvenienced. But
we have to stay alert," the official said.
Checkings are being carried out in vehicles, suspicious
people and premises across the capital, the official said.
Delhi Police has also roped in traffic police and civil
defence personnel to check motorcyclists, DTC buses and keep a
vigil at crowded places.
Last year on the same day, two men had opened random fire
outside the Jama Masjid injuring two Taiwanese nationals while
two hours later a car went up in flames after a "poorly
circuited and crudely assembled" device went off.
The attack came just a fortnight before Delhi was to host
the Commonwealth Games.
Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the
attack saying it was to avenge the killing of three members of
the outfit who were killed in the Batla House encounter.
Police initially attributed the two incidents at Jama
Masjid to "disgruntled youths and local criminal gangs",
ruling out involvement of any organised terror outfit.
The Jama Masjid attack had added one more case to the
Delhi Police's list of unsolved terror attack cases.
"There are no leads in this case. We had traced the email
to Mumbai but after that there were no leads," the official
said.
Police had also rummaged through unedited TV tapes
looking for clues while several teams criss-crossed small
towns in Uttar Pradesh looking for leads.
Mohammad Afzal (40), a businessman from Jaunpur in UP,
said he had come especially to take part in the protest.
"All the parties be have been dividing us on religious
lines. This vote bank politics has to go now," he said.
The Ulema Council also demanded that every act of
terrorism in the past ten years be impartially and fairly
probed by a special commission comprising of retired Supreme
Court judges.
Yesterday, a group of activists had sat on a one-day
hunger strike in Rajghat to protest against the Batla House
encounter.
PTI
First Published: Monday, September 19, 2011, 16:09